High drama in Rajya Sabha as quota bill moved

NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha today witnessed high drama when two Samajwadi Party members were directed to leave the House for causing disruptions over a quota bill, leading to arguments and counter-arguments before all members of the party walked out.

Trouble started just before the Constitution (117th Amendment) Bill, 2012 was moved by Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanasamy for consideration and passing, for the third time in the last four days.

Drama continued for about an hour, during which the House was adjourned thrice for brief periods, before SP members staged a walk-out, leading to restoration of normalcy.

Earlier, when Narayanasamy rose to move the bill, seven of the nine members of SP trooped into the Well. They shouted slogans against the proposed legislation.

Agitated over this, Deputy Chairman P J Kurien asked the members to resume their seats, with a warning that he would take action against them if they continued to protest.

As slogan-shouting continued, Kurien named SP member Arvind Kumar Singh for disobeying the Chair by invoking Rule 255 and asked him to leave the House.

Singh, however, refused to leave and continued shouting slogans. At this, Kurien adjourned the House for 10 minutes.

When the House re-assembled, similar situation persisted, prompting Kurien to issue repeated warnings to the member to leave or he would be evicted with the use of marshals.

As Singh refused to relent, the Chair asked SP leader in the House Ram Gopal Yadav to persuade the member to leave.

Yadav, however, argued that if the Chair wanted to expel all the SP members, it should take the "sense of the House" on it. "If there is sense of House, then we have no objection. We will leave the House," he said.